libraryassistants: (Default)
Unfinished Library Mod & NPC Account ([personal profile] libraryassistants) wrote in [community profile] unfinishedlibrary2025-10-31 06:42 pm

Careful of the stacks - LIBRARY LOG

Who: EVERYONE!
What: A bunch of Editors walk into a library...
When: October 31st - November 13
Where: The Unfinished Library
Content warnings: Please add them as needed in the comment titles!

Welcome to the Library, Editors.

As the new residents drop into the Library, they are bound to have questions. Unfortunately it seems no one (except perhaps someone on the phone) appears to have any answers. But there is a nice little cart with a carafe of too weak coffee, a pot of too strong tea, assorted creams and sugar packets, and what appear to be leftover boxed shortbread cookies. There’s a sign inviting people to help themselves but reminding them not to take any food or drinks into the stacks, or touch any of the books with their grubby cookie hands. But aside from this little display and the nametags they’re all given, which do reappear whenever removed for the first week (where do they keep coming from?), the Editors are more or less left alone.

The Library is eternal, or at least it seems that way, unbothered by its new inhabitants. It certainly does not seem like this is anything unusual within its operation. Are there other sections of the Library with Editors, tucked into a different part of the stacks? Have there been Editors here before, and the ones here are simply a replacement? It’s impossible to say, just that the Library seems quite prepared for them. The refrigerators are stocked with appropriate (if generic) foodstuffs, any tantrums in front of the circulation desk are completely ignored, and attempts to set the Library on fire fizzle out before anything can even catch.

However, after a few days, some of the scenery in the Library seems to be changing. Little singing bowls and white noise makers pop up on various shelves and counters, yoga mats appear tucked under the bunk beds (plenty for everyone, somehow), and some of the rooms have started playing relaxing, meditative music over unseen speakers. More confusingly, there are also small UFOs hanging by string from the lower ceilings of the contained rooms, which on closer reflection are revealed to simply be two paper plates glued together and painted silver. In the beginning they’re quite sparse, but by the end of the second week they are everywhere and impossible to ignore.

At the start of the second week, there is a possible hint as to why, for at least part of it. On the table by the circulation desk there is a sign: “This Week’s Recommended Reading: Invasion of the Body Snatchers!” Next to it, there is a sign up sheet: a waitlist to check-out the ‘reading.’ (There is no explanation or apology for it actually being a movie.)

[ooc note: The Library prompts from the TDM can be considered canon to the game. Remember any of the locations listed in the setting are fair game. Have fun!]
wontforbidtherain: A side-view drawing of a bony dark-haired white woman looking down; folds in her neck suggest gills. (Default)

[personal profile] wontforbidtherain 2025-11-03 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"For can, I can help. I taught my younger brother how to read and write. And it will be easier here, with so many books. Only experience woule solve 'will'."

Caleb's reading and writing were still not good as an adult, but there was only so much an older sister could do with scratching letters on the ground when the guards weren't looking.
monstrous_bride: (thinking)

[personal profile] monstrous_bride 2025-11-06 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
"Generous," she replies, thinking it over. Wondering if she's got another goodie-goodie on her hands - the optimists who haven't been jaded by nearly two hundred years of life.

The people she convinces herself regularly she has nothing in common with.
wontforbidtherain: A side-view drawing of a bony dark-haired white woman looking down; folds in her neck suggest gills. (Default)

[personal profile] wontforbidtherain 2025-11-06 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Aphra's optimism is pretty strained... more that she knows at least a few people are still worth investing in, and that she's not going to escape on her own. Everyone else... well, she can reflect on how entropy means that every awful thing will also be forgotten dust eventually. Aeonism isn't the sort of religion you stick with if you want cosmic justice.

"Useful. Reading and writing are some of the most powerful tools invented, because they anchor most of the others. And it means that I won't be stuck at a desk acting as scribe if we want records of what we observe."
monstrous_bride: (Default)

[personal profile] monstrous_bride 2025-11-09 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
"This place doesn't strike me as leaving us with desk jobs," she replies, with a shake of her head.

"Trust me, we're here against our will. Meaning they want to use us for something. We're useful prisoners."

Strangely enough, she's familiar with this situation.
wontforbidtherain: A side-view drawing of a bony dark-haired white woman looking down; folds in her neck suggest gills. (Default)

[personal profile] wontforbidtherain 2025-11-09 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"The last time someone wanted to use me for something, it did happen to be research skills and knowledge," Aphra said. "Though in that case, it was more that he thought if he could show I was useful to his masters, it would afford me some protection."

Aphra sympathized with Ron Spector, because she suspected he had some of the same problems; he might not have to prove his humanity, but, through no fault of his own, he had to prove his loyalty in ways others didn't. It didn't mean she inherited his belief in the trustworthiness of the US government.
monstrous_bride: (Default)

[personal profile] monstrous_bride 2025-11-11 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Good for you," she responded. "Doesn't explain why I'm here. I'm more the 'rip things limb from limb' school of things."

Imprisonment hasn't exactly improved her tendencies towards violence, either. Then again, neither had WWII.
wontforbidtherain: A side-view drawing of a bony dark-haired white woman looking down; folds in her neck suggest gills. (Default)

[personal profile] wontforbidtherain 2025-11-11 01:53 pm (UTC)(link)
World War Two is a wonderful example of how awful some humans can be. Also how terrifying modern war is. "Then it could be that our captors don't know exactly what will be needed. I can defend myself, but I currently only have a knife."

Aphra is stronger than she looks, but she would not bet on herself against the Bride.
monstrous_bride: (Default)

[personal profile] monstrous_bride 2025-11-15 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
She pushes back her jacket to reveal the pistols on her hips.

"Slightly better off, but a knife's better than nothing, especially if you know how to use it."
wontforbidtherain: A side-view drawing of a bony dark-haired white woman looking down; folds in her neck suggest gills. (Default)

[personal profile] wontforbidtherain 2025-11-15 03:41 pm (UTC)(link)
It's been a while since Aphra has seen guns in the hands of someone who wasn't an agent of the state; the people she spends her time with assume that going armed is likely to provoke a response from agents of the state looking for trouble. But she can't deny that a gun is often more useful than a knife. "I do. But having someone acting as backup when I surprise someone not expecting me to fight back is smart."
monstrous_bride: (Default)

[personal profile] monstrous_bride 2025-11-18 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
She sort of is. And sort of isn't. She's complicated.

"Smart is good," she admits. "And you seem to at least have come from the deep end of the pool in terms of brains."

It's about as complimentary as she gets.